RT @WhalePanda: Bitmain is urgently deploying 90 000 S9 miners in a desperate move to try to win the upcoming hashwar on $BCH.
This news was already picked up yesterday by Chinese media but I haven't seen any reporting yet on Western news sites.
https://t.co/bP3J3kmD2w

RT @WhalePanda: Bitmain is urgently deploying 90 000 S9 miners in a desperate move to try to win the upcoming hashwar on $BCH.
This news was already picked up yesterday by Chinese media but I haven't seen any reporting yet on Western news sites.
https://t.co/bP3J3kmD2w

Bitmain is urgently deploying 90 000 S9 miners in a desperate move to try to win the upcoming hashwar on $BCH.
This news was already picked up yesterday by Chinese media but I haven't seen any reporting yet on Western news sites.
https://t.co/bP3J3kmD2w

If any single entity can control the majority of the hashpower for a given coin, then we are relying solely on their benevolence to trust that they don’t censor transactions or steal funds either to benefit themselves, a state actor, or someone else. Trustlessness is essential to blockchain.

Yes, a blockchain is a database. It may not be useful if one person is using it, and may not be a cryptocurrency, but it would still be a blockchain. Blockchain refers to the data structure, not the use case or utility.

Just because one person CHOSES to mine it and others don't, doesn't make it centralised.
Centralisation is when you have one party only which has the ability to do something, while other don't, like for example how FED has ability to create money at will, while no one else can do the same, so this doesn't apply to Bitcoin system, so you clearly don't know what centralisation means.. which is no surprise as most people don't know this.

Centralization in blockchain can refer to many things: node centralization, hashpower centralization, developer centralization, wallet centralization.
With regard to mining, it exists when one miner owns most of the hashpower. This is possible in BCH because the hashpower is so low and because it uses SHA-256 which allows those mining bitcoin do use the exact same rigs to dominate BCH.

What are you afraid will happen? Even if they temporarily have majority hashrate and the ability to do 51% attacks, Bitmain is a massive holder so their incentive is to maintain the chain as sound money.

I’m worried that investors will realize that BCH isn’t trustless or immutable because nothing is stopping Bitmain (or China) from flipping a switch and capturing the entire hashrate. This is impossible with bitcoin.

That's true, but it would be very unprofitable to put all their hashrate on the BCH chain. The only reason Bitmain would do it would be to *protect* BCH and ensure its long-term value, since they hold 1MBCH. There is no reason they would take a mining loss switching to BCH just to destroy the value of their BCH holdings.
Now if they sold those 1M BCH and bought tons of BTC, what you're saying would be a lot more relevant.

There are many motivators for Bitmain besides profit. They can kill upgrades they don’t agree with. They can censor on behalf of state actors. Just the possibility that they can do this is enough to intimidate their adversaries and centralize the coin further. You are advocating that we trust Bitmain and say it’s okay because they are profit motivated. The reason this doesn’t work is the reason bitcoin was invented in the first place: even though Visa and PayPal are for-profit, they regularly agree to censor transactions and enforce state regulations. Bitmain is not immune to this and trusting Bitmain isn’t the point of blockchain.

Bitmain can't censor transactions. If their blocks didn't include a certain type of transactions, all of those transactions would go in the next block that was mined by someone else. They are not the only bitcoiners that think BCH is the future world economy. Yes, they could have a majority hashrate (same on BTC) but they can't have 100% hashrate.
If "China" flew in on nukes and commandeered Bitmain's everything, even they wouldn't be short-sighted enough to destroy the system. BTC isn't protected from that scenario, either. You are free to invest however you see fit, though, based on your own priorities and perceptions of risk, and we can agree to disagree. Because that's what the free market is allllllll about.

> nothing is stopping Bitmain (or China) from flipping a switch
Yes, there is. It's called the incentive to make the most profit. Simply way to call it is running a business. If Bitmain destroys the reputation of BCH, its holding value will be also dropped.

China doesn't care if Bitmain is profitable. If they want to censor transactions, they have the means to. Profit motive only matters when you are motivated by profit. Coercion and other motivating factors exist too, remember.

The glaring issue is that sometimes incentives are other than monetary.
The government of China could lean on Bitmain
This is also true of Bitcoin BTC though which can end up equally centralised in terms of hashpower. Small blocks don't prevent mining centralisation.

Your submission has been flagged for removal because it pertains primarily to altcoin discussion and/or promotion. Altcoins are off topic for the Bitcoin subreddit. Please post in /r/CryptoCurrency or the relevant altcoin subreddit instead. Thank you.